The FNDRS Elements®Element 19Risk
Owner Dependence
How much of revenue, relationships, and decisions route through the owner. Scored as control: higher is safer.
Whiteboard session
Troy on owner dependence
Troy walks owner dependence: the five questions a buyer uses to find it, and the sequence that gets a business running without you.
| Symbol | Od | Number | 19 | Family | Od Risk | Position | G2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scored as | Control: higher is safer | Compounds | FG | Worked in | Build | Pillar | Operational independence |
§1 Definition
What owner dependence is
How much of revenue, relationships, and decisions route through the owner. Scored as control: higher is safer.
Owner Dependence is how much of the business routes through you: the customer relationships only you hold, the decisions only you make, the knowledge only you have. It is the most common reason businesses in this range sell for less than they should, or fail to sell at all. It is scored as control, so a high score means the business depends on you less.
If the top five customers would call your cell phone before calling the company, if you approve every purchase over $500, or if you are the only one who knows how the pricing works, the business depends on you.
Use cases
Introducing a second relationship on every key account, setting decision rights and spending authority for your leaders, writing down what only you know, and measuring how many days the business runs without your involvement.
The risk family
Exposures that cause a buyer to discount the multiple or walk away. Risk elements are scored as control: a higher score means the risk is contained.
The discount. What buyers subtract for. Scored as control, so a higher score is safer: owner dependence, documentation, concentration, key people, compliance.
Meet the familyA founder who worked on this
One of the three things his FNDRS Discovery Day showed Cured Nutrition to work on.
Joe Seehey CEO, Cured Nutrition · Colorado
§2 Measurement
What the assay measures
Share of revenue, key relationships, and decisions that require the owner, and days per year the business runs without owner contact.
- Critical gap
- 0 to 24
- Leaking value
- 25 to 49
- Developing
- 50 to 74
- Strong
- 75 to 100
How the scale reads
- Every element is scored from 0 to 100 against what a sophisticated buyer expects at close.
- Risk elements are scored as control: higher is safer.Applies here
- Inputs are recorded, not targeted.
- Outcomes are derived from their feeding families.
§3 Venn
How owner dependence bonds into founder gravity
A compound is two elements a buyer reads as one property. A risk compound. Everything pulls toward one or two people; buyers discount the multiple until it dissolves. Each circle is one element, scored on its own; the overlap is founder gravity, read from the parts together rather than from any one of them.
- Owner Dependence is one of the circles. Its own score comes from the assay; the compound's comes from all 2.
- Where one circle is weak the overlap shrinks, and with it the price a buyer puts on the whole. Strong key-person risk without owner dependence is still not founder gravity.
- Hover a circle to read what that element measures, or the centre for the compound itself.
§4 Position
The risk series
6 elements share the family. Read them together: a buyer prices them as a group.
§5 Compounds
What owner dependence forms
Compounds are the properties buyers actually price: several elements bonded into one. Each is scored from its parts.
Founder Gravity
A risk compound. Everything pulls toward one or two people; buyers discount the multiple until it dissolves.
Bonds withKp Key-Person Risk
§6 In the FNDRS journey
Where owner dependence gets worked
The assay scores it. The process, the pillars, and the platform move it. Table 2 lists every place this element is on the agenda.
| Where | What happens | Alongside | Go |
|---|---|---|---|
| StageBuild | Build the right foundation. Establish a company capable of becoming valuable rather than merely producing founder income. Baseline valuation, health check, constraint inventory, and the first roadmap. | TmTlCpDmCfPdDdKpLcTdAc | The process |
| Pillar of valueOperational independence | The single biggest lever on the multiple, and the one that takes the longest to move. A buyer is paying for a company, not for you, and the price reflects how true that is. | MdKpSpAcDd | The pillar |
| trackOperations audit | How the business runs without the owner | KpSpAc |
§7 In the valuation
What the FNDRS valuation reads for owner dependence
Measured High leverage
The FNDRS valuation reads this element directly. Its assay score derives from the same answers the engine scores, so the assay and the valuation can never disagree.
What FNDRS reads
The share of revenue, operations, and vendor relationships that depend on the owner, and the owner's workload.
Find out where your owner dependence stands
The exit score is the first assay: fifteen minutes, six pillars, and a first read on the elements that matter most.